non-BYU games.

When I watch other games, I see QB's make bad throws, interceptions, and all sorts of stuff - the same stuff Retzlaff and other QB's get reamed for. But I don't care so much about those teams and those QB's and so it's not particularly meaningful.

When I'm watching BYU, I'm so invested in the game that every throw and every drive has immense importance. There's something psychological going on that I notice in my work. As a lawyer, I expect to win every case and every dispute. So when I am successful, I don't get too excited about it, because I was supposed to win. But when I lose? It's the end of the world and I can't believe the judge ruled that way, and he's wrong, and all that - I tell people frequently that I hate to lose more than I like to win.

I think that bleeds over into our BYU fandom. The great things Retzlaff does are expected. He's just doing what he's supposed to do, and what we're used to past BYU QB's doing. But when he makes a mistake, it's magnified. Steve Young never threw so many interceptions! Ty Detmer never did! But when you look at the stats, it turns out Jake's interception rate, for instance, is lower than many of the guys we revere. But the current bad stuff is magnified so much in our minds that we move the goalpost - "Well, he throws more interceptions in the red zone!" - something I doubt is true, but due to recency bias, sounds right.

Jake has a lot of tangibles and intangibles. The things he's not perfect about are things that can be improved with another year of coaching, film study, and experience - something former QB's like Riley Nelson and Kevin Feterik couldn't say.

Jake's our QB going into next year, and he has a chance to improve and make next year even more special than this year was. When it comes down to it, we were so close to a perfect regular season - and so close to at least 4 losses. Jake got us two wins at least, just on his guts. We can't let ourselves ignore tha.